News

For more than a decade, the Aspire Awards have provided an occasion for faculty, staff and students to recognize undergraduate leaders in the College of Natural Sciences. The event celebrates undergraduate students from underrepresented groups in the sciences, recognizing their achievements in research, service and leadership. This year, 25 students were given Aspire awards in several categories. The event is a collaboration between the college's Office of Undergraduate Education and the student-led Black and Latinx Advocacy Council.

The Association for Computing Machinery has awarded Scott Aaronson the 2020 ACM Prize in Computing for groundbreaking contributions to quantum computing. Aaronson is the David J. Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin.

When was the last time you changed out a battery in your house? Studies show that battery-powered devices are used substantially in modern times; Americans use nearly 3 billion batteries every year. Batteries are currently popular because they are able to make electric devices, such as flashlights and watches, portable. However, our usage of batteries extends further than just portable electronic devices. 

The Association for Computing Machinery, the primary professional organization in the field of computer science, has named two University of Texas at Austin professors — Peter Stone and Lizy Kurian John — as ACM Fellows. The award goes only to highly distinguished computer scientists representing the top 1% of ACM members.

University of Texas at Austin researchers have been instrumental in tracking the spread of the coronavirus, developing critical antibody treatments to save lives, developing diagnostics and creating the vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 that are currently being distributed around the world.

The College of Natural Sciences welcomed more than 20 leading researchers and captivating teachers as new tenured and tenure-track members of the faculty this academic year. Meet some of the newest scientists, mathematicians and technologists on our faculty.

At the age of four Amir Husain fell in love with computers — in his words, he "became obsessed" with them. In his teens he began writing to his heroes, computer scientists like Niklaus Wirth, who created the Pascal programming language, and Nicholas Negroponte, a pioneer in the study of how humans interact with computers. They all wrote back. Amir left his home of Lahore, Pakistan to attend The University of Texas at Austin 8,000 miles away, drawn by the work of one of UT's computer science labs. While at UT, he found a kindred spirit in his wife Zaib, who was also from Lahore and a student at the McCombs School of Business.

The Teaching Excellence Award in the College of Natural Sciences seeks to promote and recognize excellent teaching in the College of Natural Sciences by honoring faculty members who have had a positive influence on the educational experience of our students. Read on to meet this year's winners.

Industry analysts say that more data has been collected in the past two years than in all of human history combined. Data about what we buy, what we watch, where we go and who our friends are is constantly being collected and stored. Analyzing all that data and gaining insights from it is the hard part.